


A Beautiful Morning

by Jory_Kuolema



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood, Drama, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1689254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jory_Kuolema/pseuds/Jory_Kuolema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble series of Draco Malfoy's memories that sheds light on various stages of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Одним прекрасным утром](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/51902) by Ledum Palustre. 



> These stories were written by, in my opinion, one of the best (if not _the best_ ) russian fanfic writers, **Ledum Palustre**. This is my first, modest effort to render the author's work into English as accurately as possible.

“Elbows off the table.”

Draco twitches in surprise and accidentally drops on the floor one of the forks lined up in a long row in front of him — a dessert fork, a salad fork, a dinner fork, a relish fork, a cold cuts fork, an oyster fork…

Three wizards sitting opposite him simultaneously purse their lips in an identical, imperceivable and lightning-fast motion, and then their faces go back to looking distanced and calm.

Seven o’clock sharp. The evening dinner has begun, with the whole family present, as well as two important guests from the Ministry. Draco’s five and a half years old, and it’s been six months since he is allowed to this daily torment.

He looks around, frightened, and with a trembling hand flattens out the dazzling-white, starched napkin tucked in his collar. He’s fidgeting on his chair, straining to keep his back straight… not noticing that he’s making too much noise, which is strictly prohibited at the table.

After he made short work of the appetizer and picked at a slice of fish with a dinner fork (for which he is definitely going to be punished later, but has no clue about, believing blindly that he chose the right piece of cutlery from a row of almost identical tined chunks of silver), young Malfoy understands that he’s not hungry anymore. Having already learned that he’s not to leave the room until the dinner is over, he sits there childishly twiddling his head, legs dangling beneath the table.

When the second course is served, Draco doesn’t even bother to look for the proper fork until Narcissa, gripping him tightly on the elbow, nods at his plate.

“But I don’t want to eat no more, mom!” Draco tells her, and his bright, clear voice fills the room, interrupting the quiet, strained conversation Lucius was having with his guests. They pretend impeccably that they heard nothing.

“Quiet, you!” whispers Narcissa leaning towards her son, even though he’s silent now. “How many times do I have to ask of you to behave yourself at the table!” She looks apologetically at her husband. He’s frowning. “There will be no dessert until you finish the soup!”

“But I don’t want dessert,” boldly announces Draco, adamant in his right to eat no more than he wants. It’s not something to be punished for, is it?

“Eat, I tell you!” Narcissa scowls at him, irritated.

“I won’t!”

“He’s growing up to be a cad,” Narcissa's mother-in-law politely informs her.

“It’s because she spoils him rotten,” contributes another relative to the matter.

Narcissa hastily turns away to hide her embarrassment and anger.

Then Draco suddenly recalls dropping the fork and bends down to retrieve it. He has to grab the tablecloth to keep his balance. The tablecloth in turn begins to slide down under his weight. Draco manages to reach the fork right before the plate full of soup, carried over the edge of the table along with the cloth, tumbles down onto his head.

This time the wizards, despite their immaculate upbringing, purse their lips a little longer than is commonly accepted.

Narcissa leads Draco away from the table, tugging at his ear. After turning her son in to Dobby’s care to have him bathed and dressed in clean clothes, she leans on the doorframe, tired and powerless to hold back her tears. Everybody has perfectly normal children and she’s stuck with this spoiled, cranky brat!

In the bathroom, Draco endures the house-elf’s grumbling and sniffs sadly at being offended. “Just you wait, I’ll grow up… and kill you all!” he mutters to himself suddenly, scared of his own thoughts.

But it is this thought that helps Draco to get through the evening alive, until the guests are gone and it’s time to set things straight.

 

 


	2. The Second Memory

The pale-green firefly in the lamp is throwing himself against the glass in desperation — letters in the open book blur and scatter away, just like tiny spiders on their tiny fragile legs. Draco looks at them, inside them, looking deep down at their very meaning — and sees none.

Letters. Ticks and lines, curves and dots. Ink.

A distinctive rustling of expensive paper. The smell of a goose feather — soft, a bit tart and birdlike, the smell of living warmth hidden inside the ball of down. A ball which once was able to fly, and loved it too.

Enormous stairways of bookcases stretch up into infinity, and merge somewhere out there above Draco’s head. A dome, a bell jar. A trapping pit.

There is more dust than oxygen in the air.

There is more mockery coming out of the lamp, than light. And if you keep looking at the miserable firefly locked inside, it is almost as if you can divide the uneven glow into separate rays.

_The use of magic was forbidden in the goblin libraries because goblins despised wizards and their craft, but the main rule was — no fire. To protect the folios from humidity without resorting to magic, each page had to be coated with a foul-smelling, highly flammable solution. Draco had gotten so used to it during the previous months that he didn’t even notice the stench around him. One tiny spark was all it took for the bookcases to turn into giant blazing pillars. One spark to burn alive anyone who happened to be around this funeral pyre. Open flames of any kind were prohibited._

Draco winces and desperately rubs the bridge of his nose until it hurts, until the tears roll. There are over a hundred pages left to transcribe. 

No magic, yes.

‘Goblin statutory law. Strengths and weaknesses, differences and similarities to other systems. Developmental trends’ — the title of Draco’s thesis. An unprecedented research topic for the ‘Higher Academy of Magical Law’. Heading for ‘summa cum laude’.

Higher Academy, the highest grade, and an even higher exhaustion. Another flammable compound, revulsion mixed with headache.

“Happy now, father? You will croak soon enough, while I have to live through this shit… on and on.”

The tie hangs around Draco's neck like a noose, slithering down his chest, its tip resting on his stomach.

Draco leans tentatively towards the lamp and slides the shutter aside with his fingernail.

The firefly sitting on the inner wall has long since abandoned its fruitless attempts to break through the glass as thick as its body. But now, antennae flickering, it senses the unknown. In one wounded motion the firefly leaps out of the opened cage, but all strength abandons it after a couple of darts from side to side, and it tumbles down on top of Draco’s workbook.

Malfoy, controlled by a sudden irrational impulse, slams his hand over the notebook. Only a faintly glowing smear remains on the sheet. Dead, and free.

Draco wipes his hand on his trousers.


	3. The Third Memory

“Listen, can you simply pretend, at least in front of my father, that it’s all for real?..”

“I can.”  
  
Wrong answer. The right one — ‘I love you, dear, but I’m too tired, and find it difficult to believe that your next attempt to introduce me to your parents will pay off.’  
  
A heavy sigh from the right, somewhere down next to his shoulder.  
  
“You can still change your mind, by the way,” jibed Draco. He would strangle anyone who dared to say that he had gotten this habit from Astoria, even though she indeed preferred to be vitriolic about the little things. Malfoy was, after all, too proud to admit that he now winced almost exactly like she did and pronounced that ‘by the way’ in a very special tone, just like her.  
  
“I love you,” Astoria told him.  
  
Wrong answer. The right one — ‘I can.’ Draco sneered at the thought. Everyone would gladly make their lives easier and simpler, but it was too big a luxury. All the courage was spent on treacheries and jibes, and what little remained was not enough to manage a single honest smile.  
  
But that's where Astoria was wrong. There was no need to pretend. Her parents were remarkable and cared nothing for their younger daughter. Dafna was another matter entirely. Oh yes, she was so smart and a beauty, though Draco didn’t have the slightest idea of what exactly made Astoria’s older sister attractive.  
  
Contrary to the parents’ opinion, all friends of the family had long since understood that the younger Miss Greengrass (soon to be Mrs. Malfoy) was as pretty as a rose blossoming with the early rays of sun, so fresh, fragile and soft, slightly bent towards the ground under the weight of large glistening drops of morning dew.  
  
Draco couldn’t care less about her beauty. Not entirely, of course, but he cared less than any Malfoy before him. That’s the way it was. As Draco had perceived it, a radical shift in attitude had to be made, and his choice was coldness. Emotional detachment. He had decided on that as a temporary resolution. Life would stop testing him in a year or two, things would brighten up. He would take his revenge on Potter, kill Dumbledore and break out of his family’s custody. Then he would start his own enterprise, get rich… and breathe freely. Living in the present, no longer afraid, no longer looking over his shoulder.  
  
Years went by. Some boxes in his list Draco checked with a fat tick, some goals lost their appeal, others he crossed out or even forgot entirely… And life still didn’t happen.  
  
Emotions he had always held back remained huddled down where they were, bitterness and pain – a lump forever stuck in his throat, anger and insult – a heavy stone lodged under his solar plexus.  
  
And beauty? He had been ignoring it way too often, forcing himself to nod in approval of deformity, to appreciate it now.  
  
There wasn’t even a hint of pride about his future wife being beautiful. Not at all, he just noticed certain things, specifics — wonderfully tender skin, so soft that you always wanted to caress it, to feel it under your fingers… so sensitive that even the slightest touch made it blossom with bruises. Serene, niveous face, fresh and fragile, with a winter-like icy flavor. The shape of her body was uneven, somewhat boyish — narrow hips, non-pronounced waist and breasts, always astutely accentuated by an appropriate neckline when going out, and punctuated by the nipples sticking out upwards, when in bed. And right below showed the overturned crescents of ribs.  
  
A few extra pounds would have smoothened those sharp edges, turning them into enticing curves, but Astoria, as well as Draco, didn’t like to eat. No more than was needed to keep the body functioning, not a single bite to one’s enjoyment.

The perception of food was the surest way to tell how tired of life someone was. Draco had even come up with his own classification. ‘Apathy’ was indicated by eating without being hungry and not sensing the taste and smell of food. ‘Repulsion’ manifested as inability to get a single bite down, followed by ‘desperation’ — a desperate attempt to relieve one’s troubles and discontent by stuffing your stomach in an effort to still the mind. Then there was ‘boredom’ — sitting at the table, sampling over a dozen different courses — slicing off a microscopic bit by bit with a thin silver knife. An attempt to spend all available time at the table, reading the ‘Prophet’ from the front page down to the last. All that — to avoid having to choose another activity for as long as possible. And then came ‘indifference’, where you could discern hundreds of subtle aromas and flavors and tell if the dish was cooked properly. You could feel the hunger transform from a sense of tugging emptiness into the dull cramping down the stomach… and you just didn’t care. There was no sense in being concerned about such trivial issues.

   
Astoria was the same as him. She had always been acrimonious, but if that didn’t help she would never be truly hostile. She never struggled openly, just couldn’t, didn’t know how. All the while keeping her own quiet world hidden somewhere inside. A cynical, spoiled snob for strangers, a proud but charming cynic with a sense of humor among friends. And in reality — a hopeless romantic, hiding each tiny wound behind the mask of indifference.  
  
 _Draco knows that nothing good will come of it. Nothing bad either. Just nothing. Deep down Draco understands that he has made that decision a long time ago._ _A few day_ _s_ _after their acquaintance, he had felt that when he would become totally disappointed in himself and life in general,_ _this could be his salvation_ _.  
  
_ _“Isn’t it too soon_ _,_ _Draco_ _?_ _”_ _is all that Narcissa manages to ask_ _.  
  
_ _“I’m_ _twenty-two, mom,”_ _he muses. These words seem only to reaffirm his mother’s concern, rather than disprove it._

 _“Astoria’s even younger_ _._ _”_ _  
  
_ _That’s the thing. The Greengrass family_ _want their younger daughter, since she has nothing going on for her in the looks department, to attend the International Academy of Magical Law_ _._  
  
  
“W-what for?” Draco almost choked hearing that the first time.  
  
“Well, they think that this way I’ll either get myself a proper education, or find a husband who will… provide for me, since I’m not capable of anything on my own,” she smiled lightly.  
  
That meant, understood Draco, that in a few years there would be nothing left of the Astoria sitting in front of him now.

   
“Marry me then,” he told her, himself almost surprised at this not quite a question, not quite an offer.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I cannot allow anyone else to go through the nightmare of studying there.”  
  
Astoria found the strength to take a look at Draco.

Sometimes, when our wishes come true, it only gets worse.  
  
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll find a way.”  
  
“And what way that might be? Running away from your parents?” Malfoy had already adopted the habit of adding a nonchalant sting to his words, but this time he hit the weak spot.  
  
She winced and shook her head.  
  
Draco didn’t relent:  
  
“I can hardly be considered an appropriate match…”  
  
Fourth place in the ‘Top 20 eligible bachelors’ list, according to ‘Witch Weekly’, Astoria recalled.  
  
“But,” Draco went on (she had nearly stopped listening at that point), “you will be able to choose a place where you _really_ want to study. You’ll be independent, doing everything you want. In the end… a marriage of convenience is not all that bad.”

  
Astoria listened to his excuses, all the while stirring her ice cream with a spoon.  
  
She had wanted to study with him since high school, hating herself for being that much younger. She had been nagging her parents restlessly about that Academy, convincing them in her determination to study there. Independent? She cared nothing for being independent, she wanted to be with him… belong to him, to start a family… not ‘doing everything she wants’.  
  
She would have agreed to marry Draco if he loved her even a tiny little bit, but a marriage of convenience (which was ‘not all that bad’), even with Draco as her husband… was still such a humiliation.  
  
However, as she was churning the long-melted slush with a spoon (vanilla was her favorite) Astoria understood perfectly that if Draco ever made his stupid proposal again, even as a joke, she would agree without a moment’s hesitation.  
  
And they would live in separate bedrooms, meet only at dinner and accidentally – in bed. They would stop discussing the day’s events… their frail friendship and mutual understanding soon withering away in the face of formal primness.  
  
And all that would be left for her is to walk among the scattered shards of what once had been, gathering smithereens.  
  
Sometimes, when our wishes come true, it only gets worse.  
  
 _“Listen,_ _can you simply pretend, at least in front of my father, that it’s all for real_ _?.._ _”_

 


	4. The Fourth Memory

Draco didn’t believe in life lessons. Neither did he believe in an entity more omnipotent that the omnipotent Merlin, thoughtfully handing out homework to everyone and then grading it, ‘Exceeds Expectations’, ‘Poor’, ‘Troll’… 

And he couldn’t begin to understand — was everything around him so worthless that life had to be based upon a series of ludicrous coincidences? Or was he himself dumber than a flobberworm, crawling sluggishly atop the cutting board in search of a strand of grass to consume, unable to comprehend the supreme design… Oblivious to the fact that his own disgusting, filthy mucus would one day become the component of a life-saving antitoxin.

Design?.. It was more logical to believe that there was no such thing at all. This thought helped to accept one’s own meaninglessness. And if there was a design, then you wouldn’t be able, by any means, to avoid it.

Just one tiny, sorry cell in the right place at the right time – and here he was, roundheaded, bug-eyed, helpless and alive, one Scorpius Hyperion, unable to walk yet, but sitting confidently on his butt. He had already learned to spit precisely on target and, judging by his contented little mug, just had successfully finished digesting his very first fruit puree. 

A moment of uncertainty of the future that had put down roots in the ignominious weariness of the past. 

Draco didn’t know yet that the box with the strand of translucent bright hair left after the first haircut would remain in his secret cache, next to the most important documents and papers, until he was way too old. Only then, when it became too hard to take the stairs and too dangerous to Apparate from floor to floor, would Malfoy take that box with him to the bedroom.

And he also didn’t know that he, as a proper dad who was ‘always at work’, would miss the first tooth, the first word and the first steps.

But he knew that someday Scorpius would go to Hogwarts. He would be munching on the sweets Astoria sent him, playing Quidditch, tugging at the tails of every living thing in school, swimming in the lake, skipping Herbology classes, climbing the Astronomy Tower at night on a dare. He would also most certainly bully all the Potters and Weasleys, who would constitute half of Hogwarts by that time due to diligent reproduction. 

For a fleeting moment Draco saw himself living all this through once again, time after time…

He looked furtively (as if this delicate morning dream could be undone by just one glance) at the seven-month-old lump sleeping in his hands and sighed ever so slightly, unable to restrain himself from being both fond and envious of his son’s future. 

Childhood is not that bright, no. It has its share of problems and fears, restrictions and hurts. It’s just that you are always able to believe that, when you finally grow up, you will be big, strong and important. You’ll be the architect of your own destiny, your actions unaffected by the things that go against your will or intuition. 

But as long as your parents, scolding you for a stained mantle and forcing you to make words out of syllables, seem to be the scariest thing in the whole wide world (right after the monster lurking in the closet), all you have to do is to meet certain expectations. When you finally get that freedom you have longed for, one more responsibility presents itself — now you have to _force yourself_ to meet those expectations. 

Scorpius tightly squeezed the corner of his father’s mantle and, apparently, was drooling all over it. 

It felt both like spitting in Death’s face and hoping that ——


	5. The Fifth Memory

The feeling was too familiar, plushy as a cloud and mercilessly, mercilessly tender.

Draco twirled the quill in his hands, tickled his cheek with its tip, felt the weightless down with his fingers and smiled despite himself, when the eggplant-colored blob of ink dangling on the nib hesitantly plopped down on the paper.

He had long since learned to decipher these women – so different, stupid and smart, cynical and not-so-cynical, purposeful and pushy ones that didn’t hesitate to slide their hands down his pants, and the others too – those amusing idealists blushing in embarrassment, who turned to stone from a single look. Beautiful and not as pretty, demanding or willing to endure most anything, all those cuties and prickles.

They were all the same — adoration, money and understanding. Not necessarily in that particular order and in various proportions, but in the end it all came down to Draco’s ability to tip generously or donate a couple thousand galleons to another charity, complacently undress them with his eyes or whisper to them, biting his lips like a timid fifth-year, that ‘this is the first time something like this happens to him’ and he ‘could have never imagined finding the one he’s unable to resist’. During the most fruitful seasons the ‘first time’ had happened to Draco over a dozen times in a month. And also, there was his trump card: ‘You must be very tired’. Tired of being alone, of finding no understanding, tired of that boring job, of the endless routine, of doing pointless work. Tired of the heat, the cold, the half-hour tinkering with charms for curling eyelashes. No money, no justice in the world, and all those halfwit wizards think about is getting under your skirt, ready to do anything to get their way.

They were tired of every single thing, apart from lamenting touchingly, ‘Yes, Draco… you really understand me, you alone…’

Draco indeed understood, and he also fucked them – the ones he liked. He never needed to work hard to get them – he had the looks, the office in the Ministry, his life-weary eyes and cynical smile worked much better than any Attraction spell ever could. And there was the marriage, undoubtedly forced, to his fish-eyed translucent lady wife, and their son, undoubtedly fraudulently conceived.

They had all thought that it was in their power to melt his cold heart with affection, to get inside the metallic shell that hides the vulnerable and gentle Draco from the cruel outside world. His honest confession would have elevated their sense of self-esteem to unfathomable heights and… what went next? …rings, wedding robes, happily ever after.

The subject of marital fidelity had somehow passed Malfoy by. He respected Astoria just enough to cover his tracks flawlessly. 

Each time, he came home nauseatingly on time, habitually put his robe on the hanger, changed his clothes, and then sat at the dinner table for hours on time or chatted with his wife about nonsense, snuggled cozily on the small pillow atop her knees. And Astoria caressed his head with an absent smile, her slim fingers caring and weightless, stroking his hair. 

The look the new girl gave him was a bit austere, but not impudent, as she rebelliously shook her short hair. Her sloppily manicured nails, cheap robe and the quiet look gave a slightly wild and careless impression. 

After he was done testing the new assistant with a couple of stock phrases, Draco came to a conclusion that there was no reason to waste his time — he was way past that reckless age when one did something purely out of exploratory interest, without a distinct goal in mind.

And he would have never changed his decision if he hadn't accidentally noticed a string of crooked scars on her neck, meticulously hidden under a bulky shawl.

And then all his strategies failed. Money humiliated her, expensive gifts left her indifferent and virtue suddenly started to resemble a snarling animal, with a smell of rotting fish about it. Lust bored her, her own fears evoked only a sour smile, along with the merits. Her eyes, slightly slanted and cloudy, kind of gray and kind of blue, but with a hint of green and a few brownish speckles, were full of clarity and somewhere down there lay weariness, splashing like a boundless sea and immensely tired of itself.

Draco came back home, habitually took off his robe, changed his clothes, had dinner.

And then he suddenly understood that he had cherished her imperceptible presence in his life right from the moment when he had first thought that it’d be good to find someone to… call his own. 

Malfoy savored this immeasurable, bittersweet feeling, gently allowed it to overcome him, squinting in pleasure, smiling, all the while being turned inside out with pain.

After a week or two he forgot about her and passed her down to the adjacent department. 

He came home, habitually took off his robe, changed his clothes…

 

The new one looked at Draco with interest, stealthily assessing his behavior and fluidity of motion — with a passing hint of curiosity, clinging to the document holder she pressed to her chest. And she obviously had a hunch that Malfoy’s reputation wasn’t that pristine, and there was an unspoken challenge in her eyes — thinking herself more rational and sensible, in full control of the situation and able to make him fall in love with her, but not the other way around. And in case something happens – able to walk away in time, outdoing everyone.

And he would have never changed his decision if…

 

_And Astoria stroked his head for a long, long time, her fingers entangled in his hair._


	6. The Sixth Memory

He had finally realized how much she loved him. A tad too late, but he had.

It might have been a fleeting flash of conscience, deified by the living; a moment of self-justification — a game that the living adored, convincing themselves each night before going to sleep that tomorrow would finally be the day they met the dawn cleansed and true... and should no longer repeat yesterday's mistakes out of fear, as they had done times before. A splash of wisdom, colored in the silver of stars, a flicker of courage and kindness, as delicate as a candle's shadow on the wall. Unimaginable power and the will to act, all but a moment too late.

“You know, I’m so happy to have you,” Draco said one evening. It was one of those rare autumn days when the twilight sun, two thirds already submerged in the horizon, suddenly stands still for a while, searing the tenderly-violet face of the night sky with flashes of pink and pale red and a glimmer of green. The naked framework of trees sways and groans in the wind, shedding the last withered brown leaves that still cling miraculously to the branches. And the silhouettes of birds — just two bumpy dashes in the distance, black as coal — leaping up in the air from their favorite boughs as the wind swoops them up, pulls them even higher, then tosses aside. Then everything’s calm again, a solid, monolithic painting of shadows, and it seems that the Sun hasn’t moved an inch, but barely covered itself with newly gathered clouds, painting them with an incredible palette ranging from yellow to crimson, and the sky turns greener still. 

Astoria, for whom playing the part of an aristocrat for all these years had become second nature, gave him a playfully arrogant smile at first, slightly tilting her head, then calmly put away the miniature spoon, finished up her cup of green tea in a few small, faintly averse sips and, smoothing out delicately the beige satin of her dress, burst into tears.

Draco went still as a statue and hid behind the newspaper, as if the paper could spare him from Astoria’s spasmodic sobs seeping right into his ears. He accidentally triggered the Devil’s Snare of conscience that resided somewhere deep inside, freezing in place and hoping, as he had hoped before, that the grip would loosen all by itself.  
Conscience had never troubled Malfoy, he was never really concerned about morality or ethics, but the inherent sense of guilt, fostered in him by Lucius and gently nurtured by Narcissa, contaminated his blood, the water he drank, the air he breathed, and every single particle of light around him. He wondered what look his father would have given him if he had known that Draco managed to corrupt the perfectly refined Malfoy family tree with just a couple of strokes (which was the literal, however indecent, truth). The family tree with its main (and only) branch: a single child for each generation, an heir. A male heir. 

Astoria wiped the tears all over her cheeks and sat herself next to him. 

“When will I stop with all this weeping?..” she sighed philosophically, carefully cradling her belly, already visible under the loose dress. 

“When you will start taking the potions you’ve been prescribed according to schedule, not just when you’re _in the mood_ for that.”

“They make me sick,” she cringed.

“You’re sick all the time anyway,” Draco grunted unwittingly.

“But we’ll have a baby girl. Can you imagine it, Malfoy?..”

As his wife gave him a mischievous prod in the ribs, Draco twitched and accidentally crumpled the newspaper. That didn’t upset him, though, as the damage was mainly done to the photograph of the new Deputy Minister. Malfoy even managed to notice that this fat rat Smethwyck looked much better puckered up that way – the creases of paper concealed almost half of his excessive size.

“She’ll be a little beauty,” Astoria carried on, “I’ll weave ribbons in her curls, dress her up in pretty gowns…”

“You know, throughout the history of our bloodline only the exiles had girls, and even then – mostly when marrying a half-blood…”

“That’s nothing, I’m sure it’s going to be a girl this time.” 

Draco sighed, folded the already battered Smethwyck in four and kissed Astoria on the top of her head. 

He also wished for a girl to be born, —maybe then Astoria wouldn’t feel as bored and dreary with him. ‘With him’ meaning alone, of course.

The sense of guilt.

The summer came to an end, Scorpius was all grown up now and rarely replied to their letters, and even then you couldn’t expect more than a dozen lines of text, Draco… well, Draco finally realized how much she loved him. A tad too late, but he did.

And then he was overcome to the point of dizziness with a wish that Astoria would just be with him, and love…

The sunset burned out in one minute – the Sun had almost seem to trip and, turning crimson in embarrassment, dipped below the horizon and the blue-white stars instantly took to shimmering in the sky, laughing at the Sun and winking at each other. 

The girl would have all the love.

And only the wind howled on for a long time, tangled up in the clouds and grasping at the treetops already indiscernible in the black of night. 

Three months later Draco and Astoria, surrounded with piles of chronicles, historical accounts, epics and opuses written in Latin, were choosing a name for their second son.


	7. The Seventh Memory

The weightless hand, wrapped tightly in a glove, trembled noticeably. And when Draco, bowing politely, held on for another moment to the slim fingers in his hands, the Weasley girl started to tremble whole, as a leaf, along with the glove. 

Weasley, yeah.

Since the grand search of the estate’s premises after Lord Voldemort’s downfall, she was the first Weasley admitted… it would be appropriate to use _to the court_ here, written in a delicate flourish of emerald green ink on a sheet of embossed paper etc. etc.

Thoughts like these should be driven away in this age, this new era (‘blasted bowtruckle!’) of tolerance, equality and tens of other definitions the new head of the Department for Enlightenment, Hermione Weasley, had picked up from muggles. 

Before that, her husband had distinguished himself, who also was… it is clear. He had stood on the very same carpet, looking around, wand at the ready.

Succession of generations, Merlin damn it… The Weasley girl hesitantly shifted her weight from foot to foot like a graceful herbivore, the heels of her miniature shoes sinking deep down the delicate beige fluff of the carpet. She gave Draco a tentative smile, staring at him with those excessively brown, oxen eyes of a stuffed deer. 

“We’re very pleased to make your acquaintance, miss Weasley,” Draco bloomed at her, like a venerable orchid. 

Scorpius didn’t take his eyes of his father for even a moment, suspecting some sort of a ruse. But Draco had made a vow to his own reflection (still handsome, but the gloss had already faded) in the morning, trying on his new robe for the evening occasion, to withstand it all. 

 

And he did. During the cozy dinner with only a hint of formality, he allowed himself to stab Rose Weasley in the back no more than a couple of times: ‘Astoria and I are delighted to know that you will soon be a part of our family’, ‘Yes, most certainly, me and your father did get on very well’ and ‘I’ve never suspected that my son had such an excellent taste’. Apart from that, Malfoy was courtesy itself, hardly touching his food in an effort to personify every imaginable virtue. 

Astoria continuously nagged the house-elves, sending them on various silly, petty errands, and generally was on pins and needles, constantly asking the Weasley girl whether everything was all right, offering to top off her glass of wine and to pass the salt, all the while looking at her son’s future bride with eyes full of affection. 

Draco maintained his most unconstrained smile in the face of all this farce, feeling his facial muscles grow heavy and cramped, from the cheekbones down to the corners of his mouth. He realized that Astoria and Rose would become best friends after leaving the table. It was that notorious female solidarity.

With only the two of them left, Scorpius gave his father a look of anticipation that Draco could not resist.

“So. You can be honest with me, can’t you?” asked Draco in an expressly negligent tone. “Is she pregnant?..”

 _“What?”_ Scorpius was visibly taken aback, and Draco swallowed a sigh of relief. 

“Then why all the haste? Why propose when you can simply ——”

“It’s been almost three years as we are ‘simply’, dad.”

‘Although you preferred to ignore the fact.’ Scorpius seemed to add with an eloquent stare. 

“But you do understand that such a marriage is going to deny your children the right for direct inheritance?” Malfoy pointed out, realizing that the trump card hidden up his sleeve turned out to be a six of the lowest suit. 

“Of course.” Scorpius cringed. “If that’s the only thing you’re concerned about, I can sign all the papers right now.”

“No, enough paper signing for me. I’ve been digging through papers all my life.”

“Well, now all of this seems pointless... I just wanted to show you what a nice person she is. And she truly wishes to make a good connection with you.”

“Why pointless? Astoria’s happy.” 

Malfoy chose to ignore the statement about the Weasley girl’s ‘niceness’.

“That’s the only reason you agreed to go through with this,” Scorpius grumbled, for a moment looking like a child he once was.

“I see no problem here,” Draco sighed. “You want to marry her — then marry her, will you? Life’s rarely perfect. I’ve accepted the fact that a Weasley will become a Malfoy. Now you in turn have to accept that I’m not too happy about it, and never will be.”

“But you’ll attend the ceremony?” Scorpius cautiously enquired.

Draco shrugged. 

“I even can personally kiss every single Weasley in attendance, if it’ll make you feel better. But with them reproducing in geometric progression, it’s going to take the whole day.” 

“You don’t have to make such a sacrifice,” Scorpius smiled lightly. “All right, we better go. Rose’s surely worried by now.”

‘Rose is surely not worried, sitting upstairs with Astoria as they are going through the most embarrassing pictures of you as child,’ Draco thought, but said nothing, nodding in agreement.

Walking through the door, Scorpius ran into his doppelganger, only a bit younger, thinner and sharper, and that sharpness showed not only in the jarring knees and slender arms, bending at such an angle that they almost looked fractured.

The ‘doppelganger’ loudly sniffed the air and proclaimed with a nasty smile, looking at Scorpius:

“Smells like muggles and family celebrations, I reckon.”

“Is it the family viper I see crawling out of the basement? I started to suspect that you’ve poisoned yourself with your own venom.” 

Serpentus whispered something into his brother’s ear in answer, tiptoeing. 

“Looking at you, I doubt that my children will ever have rivals, Serpentus,” muttered Scorpius, but loud enough for Draco to hear it. “So long, dad!”

Snickering, Serpentus slipped under his brother’s arm towards the living room, closer to the tray filled with sweets. 

Wiping the remaining opalescent grayish-blue slime off his hands with an edge of his robe, he snatched up a marshmallow with two fingers and gave it a bite, complaining to Draco:

“I’ve almost figured out a way to reverse the aggregation of organic particles affected by toxins. The trouble is, in order to stop the denaturation of proteins, one must use a selection of spells while simultaneously introducing electrolytes into the antidote, and that, in turn, disrupts the ion exchange. Bezoar levels it out, of course, but still, only two or three mice out of ten survive.”

“Well that’s something,” Draco tried to reassure him, realizing suddenly that he had no idea who was teaching Potions in Hogwarts. This unpleasant discovery sent a wave of cold down his spine.

Serpentus sighed and reached for another marshmallow. He hung around the fireplace for a while, as if hoping to hear his father say something useful to his research. But Draco had known only one wizard who could have… and that wizard had died sometime long ago, in a different age that hadn’t yet become an era of tolerance and equality. A totally different life, a life that hadn’t had a clue about this one.

Serpentus stuffed his pockets with sweets and left, most certainly heading back to the dungeon where he himself had constructed a small-scale laboratory. And Draco kept on thinking about something… even when Astoria took a seat right next to him and proceeded to explain purposefully to him the things he allegedly didn’t understand, and something about love…

And he thought that he did, in fact, understand. He understood everything and much more, as if all he had been doing was splashing around in a turbulent river of life, and only recently had he finally been spat out on the shore. And now he sat aside, his wet clothes left out to dry out on a tree branch, the sunlight caressing his back. And he saw all the vortices and subaqueous stones beneath the blue tranquility of water, all the swirls and twirls that the current had left on the surface.

He was seized by an unmatched, enchanting feeling of finally understanding all the ironies of life.  
Soon everything would come full circle. The wind would sweep up the leaves, and they would tumble along with the wind. Like pebbles, but not _real_ pebbles. The chocolate ones.


	8. The Eighth Memory

Draco had never expected much from life, and what he _had_ expected — never happened. But there had been more than his share of things unexpected.

Ceasing his attempts to figure out the hidden logic behind various events, he had gotten used to playing chess. First with Astoria and Scorpius, then without Astoria. 

And later – all by himself. Years had gone by, but he didn’t feel any worse, and squares on the chessboard were glistening dimly all the same. 

That was the day Draco turned one hundred and eight. Harboring little hope that anyone would forget the fact, he shuffled to the door to get his mail. Among the piles of greeting cards (mostly ridiculous gingery red postcards from his numerous loving relatives, the Weasleys) Draco discovered a thin envelope the color of dusty brick, paper so dense that you could make out individual rough threads of fiber. 

He sliced the edge of the envelope with a spell and pulled out a letter, folded in two. When he finished reading it, a crooked grin appeared on his face. He read it one more time and felt a bubbling, hoarse snicker sinking down his throat. 

“Happy birthday, Draco,” he barely managed to utter. His lips treacherously formed a sorrowful grimace, which looked like a death mask on his chronically pale face covered with webs of wrinkles. 

It came back to him then, his sixth year in Hogwarts and the desperate determination to outlive everyone – his father, that coffin-dodger Dumbledore and the smug bastard Potter, even Voldemort himself. 

And here it was. The sprawling handwriting greeted him as a ‘Dear Mr. Malfoy’ and the three lines of text huddling below ‘regretted to inform’ that Potter had passed away. Such a birthday present, would you believe!

Malfoy allowed himself not to process those news and not to think about it for a few more seconds, up until he found the latest issue of the ‘Prophet’, rummaging through the heaps of postcards. Potter occupied the whole front page, and Draco felt himself shudder on the inside, at the same time finding an odd relief in knowing that they would never write five pages of obituary in his honor. 

They would never.

Potter had finally croaked. An awkward rhyme, but still appropriate for a children’s song. A nursery rhyme. 

 

_Hickory, dickory, dock,_  
 _Potter had finally croaked._  
 _The clock struck one,_  
 _Now Potter is done,_  
 _Hickory, dickory, dock._

 

What’s the point, then?.. What?..

Malfoy tried to picture Potter’s face in his head. Fate had always, one way or another, brought them together over the course of their lives, and a year ago Draco had been pleased to notice that Potter’s hair had turned so grey that the resulting color had almost matched Draco’s own hair, and Potter’s face had resembled an amiable dried prune. But now, a whole other image surfaced in his mind.

Potter stands on a Quidditch field with his hair in a mess, the uniform hastily tugged on. He checks the bindings and takes a good look at the stands… 

Too alive to ever die.

Draco knew that instead of Potter there would be an unfamiliar old man lying in the coffin, bearing only the slightest resemblance. 

Malfoy wanted to take a look in the mirror then, but he looked at his hands instead and contained himself.

 

* * *

 

It was a beautiful morning — the sky strikingly clear and sunny — when Draco realized that there was nothing else for him to do in here, and the time was nigh to join the welcoming company waiting for him on the other side, because he was dying. Lately, he had been dying of old age three times a month, no less. But it was far more serious this time — everything went dark, with bright green, violet, blue and yellowish-orange specks flashing in colorful patterns against the black backdrop of his eyelids. His legs turned as soft as cotton and buckled under the weight of his body. Draco sagged onto the floor, grasping at his heart as desperately as he would have grasped at the table’s edge, trying to remain upright.  
He had nothing, save little over a hundred years of his life, of which he remembered clearly only a few short moments, forgetting everything else, accepting some things as facts, or simply knowing that something indeed _had been_. In this fashion, he knew that he had two granddaughters who were beyond pretty, their hair and eyes dark, their names – flowery sweet. And that he once had had a wife, a job, parents and a childhood.

He recalled his childhood being a wonderful time, full of light and happiness, his parents – loving, caring and kind. Astoria seemed to be the best thing that happened to him, his sons – successful, amicable and full of promise, and his granddaughters – the most beautiful sorceresses in the whole world. Of that he was far more certain than of anything else. 

Unimaginable sensation of boredom overcame Draco, the feeling of cold in his feet intensified – a symptom of poor circulation, and the weightless blessing of old age comforted him — the inability to distinguish truth from truth, not with your own heart, not with dull, watery-blue eyes already covered with a delicate cloudy film.


End file.
